Author: Patrick Ness
# of Pages: 317 (hardback)
Genre: YA, Fantasy, Contemporary
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Synopsis: What if you aren’t the Chosen One? The one who’s supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever the heck this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death? What if you’re like Mikey? Who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school. Again. Because sometimes there are problems bigger than this week’s end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life. Even if your best friend is worshipped by mountain lions.
Review: The synopsis for this book is a little confusing; let me clear a few things up. Most books focus on unexpected heroes: something supernatural/unconventional/paranormal happens in a supposedly normal town, and the hero must save the day. However, with every story, there are the rest of the people who live in the setting of the story. These people are bystanders as these riveting stories occur and lead as normal of a life that they can.
These are the people that this book focuses on. At the beginning of each chapter, there is a brief section addressing what the heroes are doing and how the supernatural/paranormal forces are affecting them and the town. The rest of the chapter focuses on what is happening amongst a group of characters who experience the side effects of these supernatural forces but do not directly interact with it. This group includes Mikey (the protagonist) and Mel (Mikey’s sister who shares Mikey’s suffering living with a political candidate mother), Jared (a descendant from an unimpressive God), and Henna (Mikey’s love interest).
The story is told in first person from Mikey’s POV, and he breaks the fourth wall numerous times by addressing the reader. This makes the story a little more casual and a little more fun. It’s unique from other styles of writing, and I had no problem with it disrupting the flow of the story.
The heroes are usually referred to as “the indie kids.” I was expecting the beginning sections of the chapters that focus on the indie kids to be a little more amusing; I was hoping for more obvious clichés from YA adventure books (multiple of the indies kids were named Finn; if this was a cliché, it is lost on me).
The concept sounded pretty interesting (I've read books where I've wondered about the extras and what their background is), but in reality, it's just another "contemporary" story about teens and their relationship issues (with friends, love interests, parents) with a touch of a supernatural component.
An average read. I remember liking The Knife of Never Letting Go, so I had higher expectation for The Rest of Us Just Live Here than the average YA book. It's an alright read, but definitely not my favorite.
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